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Campus Apartment

September 14, 2010 — normalboy

My parents and my brother (who is home from medical school for an away rotation) helped move me into my apartment last weekend at the university I now call home.

There were a few things that I noticed about my apartment when I first saw it:

1. My building has about eight floors, but my apartment is on the first floor. I was hoping for a unit at least a floor up, as I thought that apartments on higher floors are safer from break-ins.

2. My apartment is designed to be handicap accessible. The only noticeable difference from a typical apartment is that there is no bathtub in the bathroom. Rather, there is a foldable chair in the shower, and the bathroom floor is slightly sloped to keep water in the shower area.

3. The laundry room is below my apartment in the basement, and the vent is directly below my patio. As a result, my patio smells like laundry, and so will my apartment if I open the patio doors (which are also my only windows). I don’t mind laundry smell per se, but I worry about the particulates in the air.

4. While there are vents near the kitchen and in the bathroom, there is no fan in either location or anywhere else in the apartment.

5. The bedroom had a single queen sized bed in the bedroom. If anyone remembers, I was assigned a one-bedroom double occupancy apartment on campus. My roommate had not shown up yet, so I wasn’t even sure if I had the keys to the right room.

While I was a bit surprised by these points, my mom was bordering between disappointed and angered by my apartment. My mom’s mood seemed to linger all weekend, which affected my mood too. I didn’t mind most of the problems/issues with my apartment, but my mom’s reaction made me feel like my apartment seem worse than it is.

In reference to point 5., I found out that I had not yet been assigned a roommate. Maybe the housing office couldn’t find anyone who wanted to live with a gay guy? Anyway, my apartment was converted into a double occupancy apartment the day after I arrived. Rather than having two beds in the bedroom, the living room was converted into an open bedroom.

The housing office told me that they will be filling in empty spots with walk-in students (those on the waiting list for housing) this week, so my still unknown roommate will be arriving tomorrow. It’s strange to have my apartment to myself for a few days and then have to adjust to having a roommate afterwards. Tomorrow will be interesting.

Over the last few days, I’ve been figuring out how to get around campus. My university has a far larger campus than any other I have ever attended. Many students ride a bike to get to class, but I don’t know how to ride a bike, so walking is my main mode of transportation. The campus shuttles only run every 20 minutes, so they are probably not reliable for getting to class on time. After timing myself, I found that it takes about 15-20 minutes for me to walk from my apartment to my department building. It’s a bit of a walk, especially in the hot sun or the pouring rain, but it’s manageable. Maybe I’ll be able to walk more every day and lose some belly fat.